Will Draw for Food

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The artwork hanging on the walls at my son's preschool used to make my heart sink. Some of the girls posted elaborate drawings of castles and princesses, all neatly colored between the lines. Some of the boys offered up their versions of Thomas the Tank Engine, complete with slightly crooked smile and nearly rounded wheels. And then there was my son's drawing: hastily scribbled in pink and black, as though it was an application for the Future Serial Killers of America. And it took until he started distributing his own four-page comic strip around the fourth grade for me to get over it.

My son's preschool teacher told me it was a "common issue." For some boys, their fine motor skills take longer to kick in, making it difficult for them to hold a crayon, pen or pencil. As a result, they often show little interest in drawing as preschoolers and sometimes, as kindergarteners. It's just not fun to draw when your hand gets so darn tired so darn fast. Or when the other kids are capable of creating replicas of the Mona Lisa in Crayola-on-Construction Paper. At least, that's what it felt like to me.

My son's lagging fine motor skills were among the reasons I chose to delay kindergarten for him. Many teachers and parents I consulted while making the agonizing decision assured me that I was giving my child the gift of time. Oh, and if I could encourage him to build his fine motor skills by using "manipulatives," early education-speak for Play-Doh, clay and even mud, all the better. These, coupled with daily Drawing Time, they said, would ensure his eventual fine motor success.

Only, the kid didn't want to draw. And he'd spend about 60 seconds making a lopsided ball out of Play-Doh before wandering off to go line up his toy cars. I pictured his limp hand someday incapable of signing a personal check, and decided I had failed him. Soon, I gave up on Drawing Time.

A year later, he started to draw -- on his own, without Drawing Time or manipulatives or any of the things that educators had insisted that he would need to build his fine motor skills.

But he didn't just draw now and then. He drew whenever he got the chance. In kindergarten, he went through his killer whale period, rendering drawings of various marine life and half the cast of "Finding Nemo."

In first grade, he set up his desk in his room where he'd draw every night before he went to bed -- and still does. His classmates started to take notice. "Nick sure can draw!" his friends told me. And so did his teachers.

When he was in second grade, I discovered that other kids were asking him to draw things for them. Their mothers told me they had original Nick Singers on their refrigerator doors. Last year, he even wowed some teens at a family gathering by drawing better than they could.

And then this year, he created "Zapperman and Snickerdoodle," a weekly, four-page comic strip that he draws, copies and distributes in the fourth grade. Every week, his circulation increases through word-of-mouth, and last week, he even added advertising. The owner of a local pizza parlor pays him in garlic knots for an ad on the back cover of "Zapperman and Snickerdoodle."

The kid who couldn't hold a crayon back in preschool now draws for food.

Naturally, I feel vindicated, or at least, let off the hook. But mostly, I feel like I was panicked for no good reason. Maybe the problem wasn't my son's delayed fine motor skills. Maybe the problem was the pushing down of the school curriculum so that we expect too much from our preschoolers too soon. In other words, maybe my son's "common issue" really shouldn't have been an issue at all.

Before my fourth grader left for school this morning, he left the beginnings of next week's edition of "Zapperman and Snickerdoodle" on his desk. I won't give away what happens because that wouldn't be fair to his fans. But while his former preschool teacher takes down the kids' artwork for the school year, mothers around town will be adding my kid's comic strip to their refrigerator doors. And I didn't have to do a thing to make it happen.